I have used Tire Alert and been very satisfied. One trick is to send tires in batches of 3 or more because 1 will probably not be fixible and you can still get the lower price.
Well some interesting tubular makes for comments would be Pye, as made in Newark NJ out of parachute silk for the six day crowd and Superga as original equipment on Frejus.
I used to see French touring bikes with very large, heavy tubulars. Like 35 mm and 500 grams.
The best I have used were the handmade Continental racing tires of the '70s. They inflated to high pressures and had great cornering. Eventually the price rose to $100 wholesale and they disappeared.
Joe
At 08:01 PM 7/7/01 EDT, Wdgadd@aol.com wrote:
> I don't know if this has been mentioned on the list before, but a friend
>of mine has told me of a company in Clearwater, Florida called Tire
>Alert(www.tirealert.com) that will replace entire tubes in tubular tires.
>Apparently they have purchased equipment used by manufacturers to stitch
>tires, and for $20 for one tire, or $15 each for more than one they will
>replace the tube with either latex or butyl,restitch,and put on a new base
>tape. I've seen some tires they've done, and while the base tape looks a
>little different, they seem to do a nice job. My friend Alan reports no
>problems; the base tape seems to stay put,etc. Their phone# is 800-735-5516.
>I'm going to send a couple soon. I don't have the time or patience to fix
>sewups anymore (not to mention my 60-70% success rate).
> In reference to a previous thread, I'm finding it harder to justify
>tubulars. I just got a pair of Vittoria Open CX's and boy, not only do they
>ride almost like a tubular, they "sing " on some pavement like one, and you
>need to look twice to tell them apart visually on a box rim. I'm also using
>Michelin Axial Pro's, and while they look a bit funky, they're sweet, too.
> On the glue thing, nobody mentioned the old Velox standby, Tubasti. I've
>probably used this as much as anything over the years, with good results.
> One more thing. Does anyone on the list have any experience with the
more
>obscure makes of tubular? Makes like Dunlop (heard legends that they were
>wonderful-alas, extinct before my time), Freebairn, Constrictor, etc.? I've
>always been curious as to what they were all about. Was the Clement Del
Mundo
>pretty unique (Vittoria Utmost aside) or were wider tubulars popular in the
>fairly recent past, say post WW2? How about the best tires listmembers have
>used? I've never had much luck with silks; the gods would see me glue them
up
>and put awful invisible things in the road to destroy them (so it seemed).
>High quality handmade cottons served me better. Ones I remember fondly:
>D'Allesandro Giro D'Italias, orange D'Allesandro Criteriums, and Canetti
>Paris-Nice(sort of wide, ribbed tread, lasted forever). Also, the Clement
>Grifo 61's I've been using on my housebroken track bike for the past 2 or 3
>years (I shouldn't say anything-bad luck and all that).
>
>Regards,
>Wes Gadd